In celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, the second annual VeryAsian celebration is coming to 5th Street Station on May 13. The day-long event, co-organized by Jay Pun and Sylvia Chong, is jam-packed with music, art, food, and community. Chong, a professor and director of the minor in Asian Pacific American Studies at UVA, discusses the history of APAHM, the importance of VeryAsian, and her performance of Asian American folk rock as part of the celebration. veryasianva.com
What is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month?
It’s a chance to celebrate and honor the histories and cultures of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the U.S.
Is there any significance to it being held during the month of May?
It honors two historical events: May 7, 1943, marks the arrival of the first Japanese American immigrant, a 14-year-old sailor named Manjiro, and May 10, 1896, saw the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad, on which over 12,000 Chinese had labored.
Charlottesville, and UVA, certainly have a long, largely unacknowledged, history of racism toward Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. And more recently, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic led to many people of Asian descent being targeted by hate crimes. How does our local history fit into broader experiences?
Sadly, many people are unaware of how Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders contributed to the building of this nation, from the Transcontinental Railroad and the sugar cane plantations of Hawai’i to military veterans from the civil war up to the war in Afghanistan. A lot of anti-Asian racism presumes that Asians are foreign, culturally deficient, and conduits of disease or immorality, that Pacific Islanders are primitive, and that all of them are interchangeable. When I researched the first Asian students at UVA in the early 1900s, I found stories by their white classmates ridiculing Chinese and Japanese as heathen, grotesque, and ignorant, despite the fact that many of these students were highly educated, fluent in English, and often Christian. There’s a direct line between this and the recent spate of anti-Asian violence, which presumed that Asian Americans were responsible for bringing COVID to the U.S., or the Atlanta spa shootings, in which the murderer blamed his sex addiction on Asian massage workers.
Last year’s APAHM fest was the first of its kind in Charlottesville. What does it mean to bring this celebration to the city at this time?
Asian American students at UVA have a decades-long tradition of celebrating APAHM with dozens of events, but outside the university, there was almost nothing going on. During the isolation of the pandemic and the frightening rise in anti-Asian violence, I started talking with my friend and co-organizer Jay Pun, who grew up in Charlottesville, about what we could do to respond to this. We threw together the first Charlottesville APAHM celebration in just under a month, focusing on the diverse artistic expression and experiences of Asian Americans, from recent immigrants to those born here, from adoptees to mixed-race folks. Our event was a way of taking up space, of showing up and speaking up.
Together, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders make an incredibly broad group. How is VeryAsian celebrating AAPI voices and stories?
Jay got inspired by the St. Louis news anchor Michelle Li, who got racist messages about being “very Asian” when she tried to talk about eating Korean food on New Year’s. That’s why our festival is named “Very Asian” this year—we’re focusing on the different ways we may claim our Asian Americanness, from food to music to art. Although some of this may seem traditionally Asian, a lot of the festival will draw on the ways we’ve created new identities in the U.S. that are unique and different even from one another. We’ve also tried to highlight the enormous diversity within Asian America. People assume Asian means Chinese or Japanese, but we also have participants with Thai, Filipino, Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Korean heritage.
In addition to co-organizing VeryAsian, you’re also performing Asian American folk rock. What is Asian American music to you?
I ask myself and my students this question a lot. Again, many people think Asian American music is Asian music, and usually only traditional music. But what about Asian American jazz, rap, folk, or rock? In my set, I include two songs from the Asian American movement in the 1970s by singer-activists Chris Iijima and Nobuko Miyamoto. They are influenced by Woody Guthrie, Jefferson Airplane, and Nina Simone, but they sing about things like imperialism, the Vietnam War and the Japanese American incarceration. I also do a song by the Khmer American band Dengue Fever, which was part of a pandemic-era hashtag (#CRBChallenge, for the play “Cambodian Rock Band”), not only to support Asian American theaters, but also to address systemic racism and anti-Blackness. Of course, there’s a wide world of Asian American hip-hop that I can’t begin to cover with my limited abilities, so I urge folks to check out Ruby Ibarra, the Far East Movement, and M.I.A. if you’re interested.
Amy Hagstrom Miller’s Whole Woman’s Health manages five clinics, including one in Charlottesville. Photo by Amy and Jackson Smith.
Whole Woman’s Health sues FDA
Whole Woman’s Health Alliance has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Drug Administration.
The suit follows a wave of recent rulings over the drug mifepristone, which is commonly used for medication abortions. While the U.S. Supreme Court has already blocked a Texas federal court ruling banning the drug, WWHA is suing the FDA in an effort to further protect access to mifepristone.
Plaintiffs in the case include Whole Woman’s Health of Charlottesville, WWH of Alexandria, WWH Virtual Care, two providers from Montana, and one provider from Kansas. Although there has been a wealth of abortion-related cases since the overturn of Roe v. Wade last year, WWHA v. FDA is the first time an abortion provider has sued the FDA.
In a press release announcing the lawsuit, WWH President and CEO Amy Hagstrom Miller said, “We believe in the safety and efficacy of mifepristone. The ability for our Virginia patients to receive abortion care on their own terms, whether in a clinic or at home, is paramount to their bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom.” She concluded, “There is no medically accurate reason to withdraw access to mifepristone for anyone in this country.”
Early voting begins
Voters can now cast their ballots early in person for the June 2023 primary elections, which include local races and House of Delegates and state Senate seats.
For Charlottesville and Albemarle residents, the ballot includes Democratic primaries for the 11th District Virginia Senate seat, the 54th and 55th District House of Delegates seats, and (in the city) City Council.
To vote early in person, city residents should visit the City Hall Annex at 120 Seventh St. NE, Room 142, Monday through Friday from 8:30am to 4:30pm. In Albemarle County, voters can go to the County Office Building at 1600 Fifth St., Monday through Friday from 8:30am to 5pm.
Fluvanna and Nelson counties also have a Democratic primary this June, in addition to local elections. Although Greene County does not have a primary election for either state legislature, there will be a Board of Supervisors primary. The addresses and hours of operation for each county are: Fluvanna County: 265 Turkeysag Trl., Suite 115, Palmyra, Monday through Friday from 8:30am to 5pm; Greene County: 32 Standard St., Stanardsville, Monday through Friday from 8:30am to noon and 1 to 5pm; Nelson County: 571 Front St., Lovingston Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm.
Limited Saturday voting will occur closer to the primaries, which are on Tuesday, June 20.
In brief
Teens arrested
Albemarle County police have arrested two local teenagers for the April 9 carjacking of a Lyft in Crozet. Despite initial reports describing the suspects as 16 to 17 years old, the juveniles arrested are 13 and 14. The arrest is the latest in a wave of crime committed by extremely young individuals in the Greater Charlottesville Area.
PCOB meeting
New Executive Director Inez Gonzalez will meet with the Police Civilian Oversight Board for the first time on May 11. The meeting will be held virtually at 6:30pm as normally scheduled, with an opportunity for public comment after Gonzalez’ introduction. Gonzalez officially began work on May 1.
Cyberattack funds
Sen. Mark Warner announced that $1,820,000 of federal funding will be awarded to Virginia universities. The funding will be divided between the University of Virginia and Norfolk State University to research AI approaches to cybersecurity. UVA has been granted $845,000 for the project.
Cop decertified
A former Massachusetts police officer has been decertified due to his alleged involvement in planning the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville. The ex-officer—John Donnelly—had previously been suspended from his position in fall of 2022, but quickly resigned before an investigation could be completed. Donnelly is the first officer to be decertified by the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission.
Resilience Education boasts a 7 percent recidivism rate among incarcerated students that have completed the program. The 2023 class will be the first to graduate since 2019. Supplied photo.
On May 10, the first class of students since 2019 will graduate from the Resilience Education program at Fluvanna Women’s Correctional Center. The graduation also marks the first time program participants will receive UVA course credit for their studies.
Resilience Education is a business education program designed to provide inmates with the tools they need to succeed post-release. With more than 650,000 people released from American prisons every year, Resilience Education aims to combat the primary drivers of recidivism—unemployment and social ties—through its classes taught by MBA students. While the program was started at Darden more than a decade ago, it has changed immensely since its conception with an entrepreneurship-focused curriculum.
Although entrepreneurship is still a major part of the Resilience Education curriculum, the courses have shifted to better meet the needs of its participants. “We started to realize that it wasn’t just going and getting a job … or starting a business,” says co-founder and Executive Director Tierney Fairchild. “A lot of people are incarcerated because of financial challenges, [because] of poverty.” As a result, financial capability and business foundation courses have been incorporated to prepare students for life after incarceration.
“It’s taught me to never let your past define your future,” says Resilience Education graduate Cereatha Howard. Howard has stayed involved with the program since her own release from FWCC in 2014, and is now a mentor for other formerly incarcerated people. “When you get out … you don’t know where to go … or where to start. And having people like us … [that have been] home and doing well … I tend to know how to help people look for resources.”
To help navigate life after incarceration, the Resilience Education program has expanded its network of post-release support through its Resilient Professional Community. While the network is currently in beta, the RPC provides a professional support network for Resilience Education graduates and other formerly incarcerated individuals.
“We actually can reconnect with them, and help them build a connection, both with each other and with trusted allies that want to support them in their journey to … flourishing in their communities,” says Fairchild about the RPC.
For graduates and volunteer teachers alike, both the Resilience Education program and the RPC network have been impactful. “Resilience Education is actually one of the reasons I chose Darden as a business school,” says Jackie Temkin, who volunteered regularly with the program during her time at Darden, and is now a mentor in the RPC network.
“[Resilience Education] has completely changed the way I think about … hiring. I think employers have a lot of trouble finding and retaining employees, but a lot of the time … it’s because they just have a really bad hiring process,” Temkin says. As the owner of Afton Design Co.—a local graphic design studio—Temkin has adopted a hiring process where she seeks to “eliminate unnecessary barriers … and requirements” that are often present in the recruitment process.
While Resilience Education had to pause a significant portion of its program during the pandemic, it is once again up and thriving. Both the Wharton School and Columbia Business School now partner with the program, expanding its impact significantly.
Beyond anecdotal success, Resilience Education has data that shows the positive impact of its program. Upwards of 1,000 incarcerated graduates have completed the program, which boasts a 7 percent recidivism rate. Compared to a national rate of 68 percent of releasees being rearrested within three years, this number is exceptionally low.
Fairchild attributes much of the program’s success to its community-driven approach. “This professional community is a place, it’s by and for our individuals. We have a community advisory board which started out as our design team, these are all formerly incarcerated graduates … they know what they need,” she says.
Looking to the future of Resilience Education and its professional network, Fairchild says, “We believe that what [we are] going to be doing is taking this more nationally.”
For now, Resilience Education is thriving locally. Twenty-seven students will be honored during the Fluvanna Women’s Correctional Center graduation ceremony, and preparing to enter the next stage of their post-release planning.
Rep. Bob Good has a 0 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters. Supplied photo.
Rep. Bob Good has introduced legislation aimed at blocking U.S. contributions to the United Nations Green Climate Fund.
The bill—No Taxpayer Funding for Green Climate Fund Act—would halt $1 billion promised to the fund by the Biden administration, and stop any future U.S. endowments. “Domestic energy production has helped make America great, but President Biden has consistently ceded our energy independence in the name of the radical green agenda here at home and at the United Nations,” Good said in a press release announcing the bill.
While Good claims that “[his] legislation will block Biden’s efforts to use American taxpayer dollars to push climate alarmism overseas,” the bill lacks any real momentum. Although Good’s bill will likely die in the House, it demonstrates his broader support of anti-climate policies and reactionary legislative agendas.
Despite the District 5 representative’s portrayal of the GCF and other climate protection efforts as “radical,” climate change is a pressing concern for a significant portion of the electorate. According to a 2021 Yale Climate Connection survey, a majority of respondents within Good’s own district indicated that they are concerned about global warming, and Congress should do more to address the issue.
Since coming into office, Good has consistently opposed key climate legislation. He voted against the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which “really [have] the opportunity to accelerate clean energy transitions” according to Community Climate Collaborative Executive Director Susan Kruse. While C3 focuses on more local climate efforts, Kruse says that federal legislation like the aforementioned bills “really [support] people on the ground directly.”
Beyond opposing international climate efforts, Good has also indicated his support for the continual use of fossil fuels in the U.S. In the same press release that announced his bill, Good said, “We should make every effort to enable drilling and unleash energy production in the U.S. by stewarding the vast resources of our great country.”
Since coming into office, the congressman has consistently introduced bills on an array of issues with no legislative future. Even in the Republican-controlled House, almost all of Good’s bills have not progressed past introduction (e.g. the Go Woke, Go Broke Act, Stop the Invasion Act, and Work Not Woke Act). The majority of his proposed legislation is oppositional in nature, and despite its failure, it provides him with an opportunity to publicly oppose Democratic efforts.
“Like a lot of things Bob Good does, it could … be posturing,” says J. Miles Coleman from the UVA Center for Politics. “I think of the speaker vote. … They really [did not] have a viable alternative to McCarthy, but there was Bob Good, basically until the last vote trying to push for someone else.”
Ultimately, the No Taxpayer Funding for Green Climate Fund Act will not stop U.S. contributions to the GCF. But, the bill does reveal a lot about Good’s political agenda and legislative track record.
The Woolen Mills chapel’s future looks bright, thanks to the historic building’s new owner. Photo by Stephen Barling.
An organization that seeks to foster appreciation for older buildings in the hopes of preserving them for the future now owns a significant Woolen Mills landmark.
“The 1887 Woolen Mills chapel is one of the earliest still surviving historic houses of worship in the city,” says Genevieve Keller, president of Preservation Piedmont, which will fundraise to pay for chapel repairs, and develop a plan for the building.
In the meantime, the Rivanna Baptist Church will continue to use the space for Sunday services, and “from time to time the chapel will be available for events and functions, as the church and building rehabilitation schedules allow,” Keller says.
According to a March 2020 C-VILLE article, neighbors had been making minor repairs to the street’s “signature building” until about eight years ago, when a group of volunteers created a nonprofit to take control of the building and raise money for restorations. Now, however, Preservation Piedmont has stepped in.
“Preservation Piedmont has never owned or sought to own property previously, but with the dissolution of the Woolen Mills Chapel Foundation, [we] accepted the chapel because it is a nonprofit 501(c) group and closely aligned in a preservation mission,” says Keller.
The chapel is one of 104 contributing structures in the Woolen Mills Village Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010. “Founded as a mill village in the early 19th century to take advantage of the water power generated by Moore’s Creek and the Rivanna River, the Woolen Mills Village Historic District is now almost exclusively residential,” reads the nomination form for historic designation.
Preservation Piedmont’s acquisition could signal a more secure path for a 19th-century structure in a location that’s seen significant investment in the 21st century. The chapel is just a quarter mile down East Market from the recently redeveloped Woolen Mills, which for many years stood mostly vacant and was prone to ruins.
In late 2017, developer Brian Roy began transforming the site into what is now the mixed-use Wool Factory, home to an event venue and “culinary experiences,” among other things. This area is a major anchor, but it’s within Albemarle, and Roy agreed to limit vehicular access from East Market.
“Having a group like Preservation Piedmont dedicated to historic preservation should allow for best practices and more creative solutions to ensure that the chapel lasts and stays useful well into the future,” Roy says.
Roger Voisenet lives just down the street, and says he was caught off guard by the transfer, but that Preservation Piedmont has access to resources to maintain the structure and prepare it for the future.
“In talking to neighbors, we think there is potential to expand the use of the chapel to include past uses such as theater presentations and possibly even a store in the basement, where vintage clothing could be exchanged or sold,” Voisenet says.
Successful husband-and-wife duo Suz Slezak and David Wax of David Wax Museum drop their most radio-ready effort yet. You Must Change Your Life is a catchy, hook-heavy reimagining of David Wax Museum’s signature sound—a Latin-infused take on American folk. The record transitions seamlessly from quirky pop anthems, like the album’s title track, to more traditional Museum songs such as “Luanne,” the first single. The toe-tapping continues throughout the record’s 13-song tracklist.
Saturday 5/6. $18-20, 8pm. The Southern Café & Musical Hall, 103 First St. S. thesoutherncville.com
The Oratorio Society of Virginia pairs two contrasting compositions of Latin mass in The Choral Mass: Old & New. First, Gioachino Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle, a large-scale work with “joyful flourishes and masterful counterpoint.” Then, Arvo Pärt’s Missa syllabica, an early example of the Estonian composer’s introspective and meditative musical style. Michael Slon directs, accompanied by several guest artists, including soprano Karli Forte, mezzo-soprano Melanie Ashkar, tenor Jamison Walker, and bass Jacob Surzyn.
Friday 5/5. $10-37, 8pm. St. Thomas Aquinas Church, 401 Alderman Rd. oratoriosociety.org
“I don’t claim to be an overly great farmer in terms of produce, but I grow farmers.” Michael Carter, Jr. Photo by Eze Amos.
To call Michael Carter, Jr. a farmer would just barely scratch the surface. He does raise crops, but mostly what he grows are connections—to history, to other Black farmers, to markets and opportunities. It’s all encompassed in the term Africulture, also the name of the nonprofit he heads. Sitting in a farmhouse in Orange County, on land his family has owned since 1910, he begins his story by connecting the present moment back to events that took place decades ago.
The land had gone into probate and nearly left family hands, but during the 1940s, Carter’s great-grandmother and her children committed to paying off the debt. “Her three oldest sons were drafted to go into World War II, and they all sent back $29 a month Army pay for two to three years,” he explains. “And her daughters worked as domestics.” They pooled their income and saved the land. “She wanted to make sure she had a place for her boys to come back to and call home,” he says. “It really came close to us not being able to sit here [today].”
It’s not just this visit from a reporter that might never have happened; in a very roundabout way, Carter’s entire life’s work seems to flow from this land.
Photo by Eze Amos.
Surrounded by relatives who farmed and taught agriculture, he says he was “inundated” with the subject as he grew up, but resisted joining the tradition. “I wanted to be an investment banker or a street cop,” he says. “I was in 4-H and FFA and never found it attractive because I never saw Black people in those activities. As I got older the racial bias and cultural differences become much more glaring. There’s guys walking through with Confederate flags on their belt buckles. I stopped participating.”
Yet he majored in agricultural economics in college and, after becoming an African Hebrew Israelite in 2003, found himself farming on an Israeli kibbutz. Growing food took on spiritual importance.
“One of the first things in Genesis, Adam is placed in a garden, aka a farm, and he’s given instructions to till and keep the garden,” Carter says. “That gave me a different type of outlook on agriculture” as an honored, ancient occupation.
More travels followed: to Kenya and especially to Ghana, where he lived for five years in the mid-2010s, working on various agriculture initiatives—like helping conventional farmers transition to organic methods. Living in Ghana’s capital, Accra, he began supplying familiar American vegetables to the African American expat community there—things like kale, broccoli, and lettuce. Though growing those crops was a challenge in the Ghanaian climate, the project “planted a seed of creating a niche,” matching specific foods to specific customers. Yet he still wasn’t connecting all these experiences to his family legacy. “I could not see the foundation I was standing on.”
Then, in July 2017, something changed. Carter was home in Virginia for a visit, intending to go back to Ghana, but his father had begun to press him to take over the family operation. At a cookout with his relatives here on the farm, he says, “The land started speaking to me.” Reveling in family camaraderie—and seeing his four sons on the land that his ancestors had sacrificed for—awakened a connection. Even in the days when legal barriers and the KKK tried to put Black land ownership out of reach, Carter’s family had held onto these fields and woods. Now, he felt it was time for him to take up the reins. By September, he’d relocated his family to Virginia, and in November, he founded a new business called Carter Farms.
“I contacted the owner of a restaurant in D.C. called Swahili Village,” he remembers, “and inquired about growing managu”—a leafy green that’s eaten in Africa. “We’re in the second largest area of African immigrants in the country, the D.C. metro area. [Those immigrants] usually don’t have access to their traditional foods. I did some more market research and found 15 African grocery stores between Fredericksburg and Alexandria. [I said,] ‘Uh oh, that’s a market.’” He started selling crops like managu and taro leaf wholesale, and found he couldn’t keep up with the demand. “I would take stuff to [the stores] and before I got to 95 from Route 1, they called and said they sold out. It was exciting but frustrating.”
Photo by Eze Amos.
Meanwhile, he began to think about a broader mission. “Carter Farms pivoted to growing farmers versus growing produce,” he explains. “We structured Carter Farms to be much more of a business that also farms. We received a beginning farmers grant in 2019 to help out farmers as an incubator and have grown that ever since.” His focus became the larger community of African American farmers. In 2020 he founded Africulture, a nonprofit arm that supports farmers and promotes the history and culture around Black farmers and African crops.
He had already been involved in getting Black farmers connected to customers—including a big one: Aramark, the contractor that services UVA Dining. Aramark’s regional vice president, Matt Rogers, says he met Carter in 2018 through a partnership with the Local Food Hub and 4P, organizations that do support work for local farmers. “We were starting conversations about how to improve our local supply chain purchases and understanding what the barriers are,” Rogers says. Carter became a voice for BIPOC farmers—a group that Aramark, in conversation with UVA’s Working Food Group, had targeted for greater spending.
“This is a demographic that has been well underserved and is a little bit distrusting of large institutional food systems,” Rogers says. “He is of that community and they trust him.” The barriers for small farmers can be as simple as where to park on UVA Grounds when making a produce delivery.
But Carter says he was concerned about the financials, too. “You need to pay a retail price but buy a wholesale volume,” he remembers telling Aramark. “I’m dealing with vegetable farmers, not commodity farmers that can make up for their low margins with volume.” He saw the African vegetables he’d been encouraging farmers to grow as a niche with both economic and cultural value: “We’re going to be growing some things you can’t get anywhere else.” If there was nutritional and educational benefit to Aramark serving ingredients like Nigerian spinach or callaloo, then Black farmers growing those crops could earn a premium.
Carter secured promises from Aramark to pay well and help out with the food safety certification process, which can be burdensome for small growers. The company also offers up-front guarantees to buy farmers’ produce. “I was shocked they had come to this,” Carter says frankly.
His approach wasn’t just to make demands. He also tried to get people excited. “The [Aramark] chefs came out here [to the farm], and we provided them some ethnic vegetables,” he says. “The chefs were inspired and started to create recipes.” He in turn went to UVA to give a presentation about the ingredients, sending students home with recipe cards in their pockets.
Clif Slade is a third-generation Surry County farmer, one of many Black farmers Carter works with. Carter showed him that sweet potato leaves are a delicious crop that can be sold, turning Slade’s “worthless” acre of leaves into a commodity. Supplied photo.
One of the crops Carter highlights is already familiar in the U.S.: good old sweet potatoes. But he’s been spreading the word that the leaves, not just the tubers, are delicious and full of nutrients.
It was news to Clif Slade, one of the many Black farmers in Carter’s network. Slade is a third-generation farmer who grows sweet potatoes on 15 acres in Surry County. For years, he’s been selling “slips”—baby sweet potato plants that other gardeners transplant into their plots in spring. He ships half a million of these around the U.S. every year between May and July, but he’d never considered the leaves to be a crop in their own right.
“I have an acre of plants that basically is worthless come July 15; I can’t sell them anymore,” he explains. “In comes Michael Carter and he says ‘Let’s see if we can sell them.’ We cooked [the greens] and they were very delicious. If it can turn lucrative, we can have these sweet potato greens right on up to Christmas.”
He says that Carter’s marketing savvy adds something important to his operation. “Mike’s a very enterprising young man,” he says. “This is like a byproduct, but it’s very scrumptious. I’m more of a grower than a marketer, and I’m 69 years old. He knows how to use all the social media. If it wasn’t for Mike I wouldn’t even try this.” He’s exploring the possibility of supplying both UVA and William & Mary with sweet potato greens, and says that Carter has plans for a public event at Slade Farms with food trucks and chefs.
According to Rogers, Aramark is already buying from eight or nine BIPOC farmers to supply UVA Dining. It took a few years to get there. “That was fall last year, really having this thing off the ground,” Rogers says. “Everything to that point was more capacity-building.”
Meanwhile, Carter continues to expand the scope of his mission. He sees his support of Black farmers as the preservation of an endangered way of life. “In 1925 in the state of Virginia, there were approximately 50 to 52,000 Black farmers,” he says. “[By] 2017 there were 1,333 Black farmers. That’s a 98 percent decline. This is an extinction-level event. In any situation where you have extinction you have to change the environment. I’ve sought to change the environment.”
As ever, that means attending to culture as much as to the business side. “I learned in Ghana that everything is connected,” he says. He keeps on finding more links: between the African-derived banjo and the gourds it can be made from; between young kids of color and the natural world; between American weeds and the African plants they sometimes resemble. The farm continues to act as a base for Carter to share these moments of expansion with all kinds of visitors. “When people leave here I want them to leave full, not with bellies, but with knowledge and soul being full,” he says.
Carter is teaching an Africulture course at UVA—bringing the connections to an audience on Grounds, even at a moment when diversity initiatives at the school are under attack. “I never expected someone would ask me to consult with a major corporation or teach at a university,” he says.
“I don’t claim to be an overly great farmer in terms of produce, but I grow farmers. And my greatest commodity is my story.”
Now growing
At Carter Farms, Michael Carter, Jr. plants many vegetables that are native to Africa, and are popular ingredients for immigrant communities in Virginia.
Managu
Common in Kenya and surrounding regions, managu leaves are often cooked with other greens.
Taro Leaf
Poisonous before cooking, the leaves of the taro plant are a staple in Africa and Asia.
Nigerian Spinach
This is an African green that’s used in soups and stews in many countries across the continent.
Callaloo
A rich leafy green that is frequently made into a popular Caribbean dish of the same name.
Sweet Potato Greens
The classic sweet tuber’s leaves have plenty of nutrients and flavor.
Visible Records hosts a poetry reading on May 6 featuring Irène Mathieu and Lauren Alleyne, in celebration of Mathieu’s new poetry collection, milk tongue. Supplied photo.
Poet, pediatrician, and public health researcher Irène Mathieu follows her three award-winning poetry collections with milk tongue, a new book of poetry.
Referencing the milky covering that can occur on an infant’s tongue after feeding, milk tongue is a collection that explores parenthood, family, and the intricacies of existence in this world, filled with Mathieu’s precise, embodied language. In “second attempt at going home,” Mathieu muses:
…here is one way to go home:
find your brother, find a bench (any),
pull the yarn out of each other’s throats until
your language finds its hooves again,
hear your common gallop over the land.
Playful with form, ranging from traditional Japanese haibun style to more experimental forms, Mathieu remains attentive to the physical space of the page, and committed to examining what it means to be human in the wild, in the world, as we experience climate collapse and other crises amidst the distinct pleasures and routines of being alive. In “clockmelt,” she writes:
…faith is the
knowledge that this precise loneliness will
circle back around at regular intervals
divinable only by the rain that starts at midnight.
in a midnight assemblé on my retinas, the future
& irredeemable past blaze in and out of focus
like this year’s three hundred wildfires—controlled only
by the winds.
In “Labor Day,” she considers:
it’s hard work remembering to be human,
and that’s what we’re here to celebrate today, with chlorine & grill
at the edge of a wild we crave.
In advance of her upcoming book launch for milk tongue at Visible Records on May 6, we spoke with Mathieu about the forthcoming collection:
C-VILLE: In what ways has motherhood influenced or changed your writing practice, in addition to influencing some of the themes you explore in this collection?
Irène Mathieu: The poems in milk tongue were all written before I became a mother, but my writing practice hasn’t changed all that much since my daughter was born. My job as a physician doesn’t leave much time for large stretches of uninterrupted writing, so my practice has always been to jot things down in the margins of my days, and to delve into the work during small windows of time. Logistically speaking, motherhood has simply increased the intensity of that pressured way of writing. Although I wasn’t a parent when I wrote milk tongue (there are a couple of poems in it that I wrote while pregnant), this book very much arose from a sort of pre-parenting psychic space. That is, the book is evidence of my grappling with the ethics surrounding some of the mundane desires of adulthood, including the desire to have children, while living in a society in which inequality and separation from the greater-than-human world are foundational conditions.
What led you to the different styles and forms that show up in this book? Are there any that were completely new to you?
Haibun is a Japanese form that I came across early on in the writing of milk tongue. Traditionally these poems describe a journey, and they consist of a prose poem punctuated by a haiku-like stanza that contains some sort of key insight. A lot of my poetry is inspired by travel, but I was also thinking about the metaphorical journey that is adulting, so I found myself returning to haibun as a way to explore these themes. Other than the haibun, I was mostly experimenting with forms and styles I created as I was writing. I was really interested in how the way a poem is physically laid out on the page can add to its layers of meaning, and to the experience of reading it. I love that in this sense poetry also can be a visual form of art!
How does language meet the challenges of grappling with our warming days, diverging selves, and unreliable histories and futures? How does it fall short?
For me, language is a transformational medium. That is, through writing I discover what I need to (un)learn and how I need to grow in order to make more useful contributions to the world. Penawahpskek lawyer and activist Sherri Mitchell says that 80 percent of social change is visioning and creating the world we want, and I think writing is a tool to do that kind of imagining. Mitchell also has said, “[T]his rising tension [and] anxiety that people are feeling is not necessarily evidence that something is wrong, but perhaps is evidence that something is being righted within us.” Writing gives me a way to explore the tension I feel at this moment in history, and to figure out what is being righted within myself. When the language falls short of doing this work, for me it’s a sign of imaginational failure, and the remedy is generally to listen more—to ancestors, elders, young people, plants, and non-human animals around me—in order to feed my imagination.
Councilor Michael Payne objected to City Council’s lack of involvement in the process of allocating American Rescue Plan funds. Photo by Eze Amos.
The May 1 Charlottesville City Council meeting included a report on area homelessness, funding for affordable housing, and major budgetary allocations.
The session began with a presentation titled Focus on Homelessness: The State of the Unhoused and Unhoused Services, by Misty Graves, director of human services, and leaders from The Haven, People and Congregations Engaged in Ministry, and the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless. Although council did not vote on any action items related to the presentation, information regarding the ongoing and anticipated needs of unhoused and housing insecure people in the Charlottes-ville area was provided. Notable takeaways from the presentation included the need for 60 to 70 additional year-round shelter beds, funding for housing departments, and the shifting of Premier Circle into permanent supportive housing.
When discussing the presentation, Councilor Michael Payne said, “I absolutely don’t see … permanent shelter versus housing as an either-or conversation, but 100 percent both-and.” Vice-Mayor Juandiego Wade expressed concern about strengthening housing programs, saying “I know we want to provide more, but I think that if we build a temple, we might get a lot [more unhoused people].” Ultimately, Wade indicated that he was not opposed to strengthening housing programs, but still worried about “the city of Charlottesville doing it all by itself.”
After a brief recess, the meeting reconvened, and budgetary allocations were discussed, followed by a reading of upcoming action items. Items read, but not voted on, include the 2023 City Climate Protection Program—Program Support Grant with LEAP and resolutions to award FY23 Charlottesville affordable housing funds. Several community members spoke about the need for climate action by the city later in the session.
The action item portion of the meeting was packed with major projects and funding allocations. First, council examined the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission HOME Consortium Five-year Consolidated Plan and the City of Charlottesville Annual Action Plan.
Prior to the vote, presenters noted that the most common local housing issues are cost burden, lack of affordable rentals, substandard housing, and accessibility. Cost burden specifically is a large issue in the Charlottesville area, with more than 39 percent of households spending more than 30 percent of income on housing.
Both the TJPDC and CCAAP plans aim to address ongoing housing issues in the area. To best meet the need, a majority of Housing and Urban Development funds will go toward producing rental units.
Community Development Block Grant funding is also a component of the plans, and will be used for the Charlottesville critical rehab program, resident-centered redevelopment, microenterprise entrepreneur programs, beginning-level workforce development, coordinated entry into homelessness system of care, and permanent and long-term affordable home ownership opportunities.
City Council voted unanimously to approve the measures.
The next action item—a resolution transferring $1,710,854 of unallocated American Rescue Plan funds—was received less warmly by the City Council members. The money will go toward a new HR system for the city, updating the Americans with Disabilities Act transition plan, and more. While the members did not take issue with the items in the resolution itself, there was a lengthy discussion about the process for allocating ARP funding.
Payne in particular took issue with the fact that council was not involved in the actual decision of who would receive the funding. He said, “We never got to see what other possible allocations were left on the table. [We have] heard just tonight from homelessness … health care workers, climate change implementation—that are all ARP uses—and I just feel [we have] left opportunities on the table as a city throughout.”
The resolution was ultimately passed 4-1, with Payne voting against the measure. Both of the remaining voting items— the continuity of government during COVID-19; supplemental changes and ratification and amending the FY24 budget for the city’s contribution to Jaunt—passed unanimously.
Although it was not voted on during the meeting, City Council also read through a motion appropriating $2,000,000 in FY23 capital improvement program funds for the Stribling Avenue Sidewalk and Buford Middle School reconfiguration. It’s anticipated that both projects will make major headway soon, despite upcoming litigation about Stribling Avenue. Deputy City Manager for Operations Sam Sanders said, “there’s a lot of preliminary work … in regard to the design and working out some of the many conflicts that were identified by the city engineer.”
A second hearing on the projects will occur during the next City Council meeting on May 15.
